, nor fed, clothed, or housed."
Despite all these travails, the situation of the Indians in the Indian Territories and surrounding areas worsened appreciably with the outbreak of war. The federal government was forced to withdraw its troops because the Indian Territory was located between two secessionist states, Texas and Arkansas, and bordered on another hotbed of secessionist sentiment, Missouri. Hauptman says, "thus . . . at a time when sectionalism was intensifying, American Indian existence was becoming more and more tenuous."
The Confederacy was determined to hold the Trans-Mississippi because of its strategic importance which stemmed from its resources of grain, beef and salt and a significant lead mine at Granby, Missouri as well as the need to protect the Mississippi as an arte
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